With a new planetwide analysis of vertebrate life, an international team has used 21st century science to update an iconic 1876 map of Earth’s zoological regions.

By incorporating data on 21,037 species of mammals, birds and amphibians, Jean-Philippe Lessard, now at McGill University in Montreal, and his colleagues have revised a zoological map created by Alfred Russel Wallace, an oft-overlooked cofounder of the theory of evolution. Wallace’s map divided Earth’s landmasses into six major re...